High-Q Support Transducer MEMS Resonators Enabled Low-Phase-Noise Oscillators

Abstract

Structural and electrode material engineering methodology to attain quality factor enhancement in a support transducer enabled Wine-glass and Lamé mode resonator has been demonstrated in this work. To boost the quality factor, a series of short mechanical couplers is utilized to link the central resonant structure with the piezoelectric transducer arms. Two different top electrode materials are investigated, and the effect of metal loading on the performance of aluminum nitride (AlN)-on-Si-based resonator is investigated in detail. The new resonator design strategy improves the quality factor of the Wine-glass resonator from 9800 to 16 300 while still being able to maintain a spurious-free spectrum for a 200-MHz span, which is crucial for oscillator applications. An optimized oscillation system is realized using a commercially available low-noise amplifier. Careful positioning of the passive components is utilized to attain an ideal operating point for the resonator in the closed-loop condition. Using this scheme, Wine-glass and Lamé mode resonator-based high-performance oscillators with a low phase noise of -133.6 and -132.7dBc/Hz at 1-kHz offset and -153.7 and -150.4 dBc/Hz at 1-MHz offset, respectively, which satisfy that the Global System for Mobile (GSM) communication requirements are attained when normalized to a 13-MHz carrier frequency.